Leonardo DiCaprio To Join Mel Gibson's Viking Epic

March 18th, 2010 9:38pm EDT

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Leonardo DiCaprio is in talks to lead Mel Gibson's new Viking epic after the two movie stars met in secret to discuss the ambitious project last year.

WENN broke the news about the film in January when Gibson revealed he was planning another trip back in time for a movie about 9th Century England - and he was hoping to recreate an ancient dialect for the movie.

The movie star/director, who wowed film fans with ancient Aramaic in "The Passion of The Christ" and Mayan in "Apocalypto", explained he was tackling old English and Norse as he fulfills his childhood dream of making an ultra-violent Viking film.

He told WENN, "The very first idea I ever had about making a film, and my first thought about being a filmmaker was when I was 16 years old and I wanted to make a Viking movie in old Norse, which I was studying at the time.

"I'm going to give you real men. I want a Viking to scare you... I want to see someone who I've never seen before speaking low guttural German, who scares the living s--t out of me."

And it seems DiCaprio is game for a leading role in the film.

The Los Angeles Times newspaper reveals Gibson and the "Titanic" star met for a secret meeting with producer Graham King and screenwriter Bill Monahan, who won an Oscar for Gibson's "Braveheart", at the filmmaker's offices in Los Angeles.

Gibson tells the Times, "We're going hammer and tongs on the script right now... There's never been a good Viking film, not that I've seen. I think I have found the right way to get into it, though, but I don't want to say too much. The real problem is making those guys sympathetic. They were monsters."

Producer King adds, "Mel and I were talking and he said he had always wanted to make a Viking movie and I knew, too, that Leonardo DiCaprio had a passion to make a Viking movie... so I decided to get all of us together on it.

"The interest was in both of them for a long time and I can see why - the Vikings are so mysterious, and for an actor to get his teeth into something like that could really lead to some interesting things. And it's something the audience hasn't seen in a long time."

Click for more great Leonardo DiCaprio pictures:

Photo Credits: Sylvain Gaboury / PR Photos

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